Psycho Pass – 09

by psgels, posted in Psycho Pass

Psycho Pass is a technically well written series, and what I mean by that is that it’s getting more and more eloquent: the things it has to say in its dialogue are getting more interesting and creative with every episode. It’s perhaps not on Ghost in the Shell levels, but still quite impressive compared to the other series that are currently airing.

The dialogue also really made this episode. It was both very good at describing its characters, and very interesting to hear what the different characters had to say. In particular the cyborg villain caught my attention, and the animators also seem to like this guy. Nobuchika had a major shock when it turned out that his father’s hue got clouded, and this episode really took its time in explaining not only what this meant for him, but also how the other characters related to it. Because of that this series feels more and more solid with every episode.

And yeah, speaking of Ghost in the Shell, this series definitely takes some cues from it, especially now that the talks are starting about androids. The focus of both series is completely different: Ghost in the Shell was a political thriller with a lot of focus on the mass media, while Psycho Pass looks into psychology and the minds of psychopaths, but there are definitely overlapping themes, like questioning the conveniences of having an automatic body, and how we get used to it and depend on them. Having said that, Ghost in the Shell still has much better writing and direction than Psycho Pass at the moment, but nevertheless I hope that this series will open up the door again to more intelligent science fiction thrillers, that will go even further away from your average series in anime, and that dare to take even more risks. Production IG in any case definitely made up for Guilty Crown with this: this is really the kind of daring that I expect them to do. Not that generic mess of plot twists.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Robotics;Notes – 09

by psgels, posted in Robotics;Notes

This was a major episode for Robotics;Notes: the big guy finally moves… a bit. Before coming to an abrupt stop. Yes, giant robots like that have actual problems moving right. They’re giant heavy objects that need a huge amount of power to be even able to lift one leg. I’m surprised that it didn’t even tumble over.

But yeah, talk about a different portrayal of mecha in this series. This episode also contained this interesting bit about hyping these kinds of things: I mean these are high school kids who built this giant robot, but with that marketing campaign of that guy people were expecting way too much out of it and with these kinds of things, when just one thing goes wrong it already feels like a major setback, instead of the huge improvement that it actually was.

The thing is also that I still have no bloody clue how all of this is going to play out, and how all these different plot threads are connected: on one hand you have Airi and that evil Jaxa, then there is Airi’s quest to build the giant robot, Kaito with Frau about Killbala are also trying to get somewhere, and with this episode Airi’s sister also turned out to be completely different from what I imagined and that also is related to everything… somehow. She’s probably working for Jaxa, but even then I have no clue what the point of it all is. I mean that in a good way by the way, because I’m quite interested in finding out.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo – 09

by psgels, posted in Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

I’m thankful that in general, the trend of giving anime characters hair colours that match the rainbow has been reduced to a minority, rather than a majority. Having said that though, there is still a trend that refuses to die: if there’s an english character, then that character has to have yellow hair. It works a bit bizarre in this series when Shiina’s hair already is blond, so he character in question had to be even brighter in order to stay true to this, to the point where it just gets ridiculous.

What also bothered me about this episode was the repetition. This is the umpth girl that keeps clinging to Sorata, and it’s getting a bit much. The balance is starting to get a bit lost. On the other hand I liked thta the creators are hinting at an actual other potential relationship for Aoyama. Please develop this well so that we can also can get rid of that annoying love triangle.

And yeah, I did get the point that this episode wanted to make about how Mashiro’s art, and that message definitely delivered, and made this episode worth watching. It’s a big theme of this series: how ridiculous amounts of talent can be overwhelming, and this episode yet again asks the question of what to do with it. At this point it’s clear that Shiina is doing what she likes, but in the end those are just romantic comedy manga…

Wait a minute, is this show also trying to bite the hand that feeds it?
Rating: 4.5/8 (Good)

Kamisama Hajimemashita – 10

by psgels, posted in Kamisama Hajimemashita

Okay. I absolutely loved this episode. Last week had me fearing a bit that the creators would go through this series a little too fast for the characters and comedy to really work, and this episode indeed consists out of two smaller stories, but the pacing here was just perfect. This time things really fit enough for everything to play out and for the creators to work their magic.

The first half of the episode was chockful of character development: we finally got to see what transformed Tomoe into his current self. That crucial piece of the puzzle was finally shown here, and yet this only takes up 10 minutes. It was delightful to watch Tomoe there and see him change.

The second half: again character development. This time in the romance. At this point it was obvious that Nanami likes Tomoe, and she realizes that very well, but the use of a mixer was really well placed. It really was just something to have fun, Nanami knew that as well, and yet that turned out to be the trigger for Tomoe’s jealousy: feeling competition from a human of all things. On top of that were some really good jokes and facial expressions (I loved how the mixer was just for one of Nanami’s classmates feeling lonely, or how ridiculous the name for that one guy was… did he ever get that coat of his back?)

Also. The ending. That showed that the creators know fully well that the ending of each episode for this series is awesome, and with this episode they only even made it better when Shinjirou started giving a really bad cover of the regular ED. Not only was this hilarious, it also really reaffirmed something for me:

TMS Entertainment has gotten ahold of a couple of really good producers. I already suspected this, but this really shows that they are flexible enough to just record a different ED for once for the sake of a joke that happens in the series, and it fits so well. It shows that the different departments really take each other into account. It’s also shown with the execution of this series: how incredibly consistent it is. Part of it has to do with how Akitaro Daichi is just incredibly awesome, but the rest of the people working on it: everything just seems so well planned out for this series. It’s all crisp and consistently tries to make the best out of its limited budget with consistently god jokes and timing.

Zetman and Lupin III were the same: they were really rough around the edges in comparison (which makes it all the more surprising how consistent this show is), but they always tried their best to make a spectacle out of their episodes, rather than making an episode for the heck of it. It really shows ambition and the drive to cooperate and improve. Next up is really: try to get a budget for a 2-cour series like this. A series that has the same mindset as Zetman, Lupin III and Kamisama Hajimemashita, and that actually has the time to play out for even longer, allowing for much more opportunities to experiment. I would just love to see that.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Magi – 09

by psgels, posted in Magi

And another episode that came with a twist that I just did not see coming: Sindbad easily changing sides and becoming a member of the band of thieves. But yeah, the purpose of this episode was clear: this series, or at least this arc, seems to have a very big focus on corruption, and putting an end to it.

In this episode we continue Alibaba’s explanation of what happened to him, and even though it was already hinted that he was fighting for the people in the slums, this episode explained the extend to which this happened, with everyone being extorted. The band of the fog also turned out to be noble thieves who give the things they steal to the poorest.

Personally I prefer my villains a bit grayer on the moral scale (that evil king really is pure evil with no good side about him whatsoever) but I still really liked this episode. Kassim also became quite the interesting characters when he kept hopping sides throughout the episode. And I like the idea of focusing on negotiations over violence like what this episode promoted, but yeah: that will only work if the recipient side will turn into a bit less of a stereotypical evil overlord, otherwise you’re just talking to a brick wall.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Hunter X Hunter – 57

by psgels, posted in Hunter X Hunter

Screw defeating every henchmen before you can get to the main boss! This is a show that has a plan, and if you can get a chance to crush the boss, you should by all means take that chance. Kurapika in this episode was AWESOME and I love how well thought out the plans that he made are. He put the one person who could get in his way (Pakunoda, who knew everything) in a bind, captured Chrollo and used him as a hostage for negotiations. Imagine if they’d do this in other shounen series.

And yes, my favorite part has started. Remember how in the past few months I’ve kept saying how awesome the spider troupe is? Well, this episode takes that even further: it forces the member to make an incredibly difficult decision: sacrifice the boss, or potentially threaten to kill off half its members. One simple mistake could cost so many lives. That’s one of the reasons why this became one of my favorite shounen series: how many other shounen series put so much focus on the importance of life and death? Most other shounen ruin this effect by having characters who survive against way too many odds (oh hello, Naruto, Bleach…).

I also actually cracked up a few times during this episode. I almost forgot that Togashi also put a few very effective jokes here. I loved how Chrollo kept taunting Kurapika, finding out at the same time that Kurapika would not sacrifice his friends. I also loved that one scene in which the yellow-haired guy took over negotiations and made a few stupid comments. That was just brilliant.

Also, it’s a small detail, but showing the spider troupe members in their past outfits before they started to dress so creatively. That was really worth it. It shows that in the end they’re all just humans.
Rating: 6.5/8 (Amazing)

From the New World – 10

by psgels, posted in From the New World

Another Shigeyasu Yamauchi episode. The animation was less messy, but still: you could really see his influence. And holy hell what an episode it was!

Shigeyasu Yamauchi’s style loves the use of close-ups, and weird camera angles on small details and objects to create its atmosphere. On top of that, he often works together with Kenji Matsumoto for the background art, making this episode look utterly GORGEOUS and unique. In this episode his style worked particularly well because of its build-up: the climax of this episode came together wonderfully, and with such talented directors and artists working on it it only got even better.

I also believe that the use of CG in this episode was really good. You could see that it was used, but rather of it looking out of place, it was very creatively used: it either looked totally in place, or totally not (those pills). Either way this episode looked really experimental, and I love it when a TV-series does that. Experimental animation for the win!

So my theory of Shun was a bit wrong. However, the way in which he explained what happened to him was incredibly tense, and it showed how serious of a deal Cantis is. It’s so easy to go out of control, and that’s exactly what happened to Shun. The way in which those rat people believed that humans were their gods suddenly gets a totally different dimension when they were mostly likely created by them. The whole human society is tightly controlled, yet everyone is incredibly paranoid for the case that someone goes out of control again.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Zetsuen no Tempest – 09

by psgels, posted in Zetsuen no Tempest

Okay, I think I just watched the single best episode of the Autumn Season from the series that started there at least. That was just amazing.

THIS is what I mean with using your build-up well. After the slow pacing of the previous episode that took so much time in showing flashbacks, and was so careful in setting everything up for this episode, having everything just turned completely upside down within 20 minutes was just freaking amazing. I’m just blown away by this.

Everything came together here. It was already one thing that Hakaze was living in the past, but then this episode came with Mashiro who easily changed sides, Samon who was too busy clinging on trying to keep things safe as possible, Yoshino coming with that ridiculous idea to get Mashiro to change sides yet again. The delivery was also just perfect, I loved how blown away Samon was by all this, or how on-wavering Mashiro was from his goal. Yoshino as an observer also played a brilliant part, and at the center are these two dead girls who had such a large indirect impact on everything.

And holy crap, the music of this show is awesome! It had been on the background for the past few episodes, but this time it played a really big role again. And with this, yeah. Not even Jojo or Psycho Pass can match how well this OST manages to contribute to its series when it’s really on fire.

This episode once again gave me that delightful feeling of being blown away by something. It’s not a feeling that I get often, and yet I’m really glad that this show achieved it, because I love it, and it just kept going, without any weak spot whatsoever. Please Tempest, keep up this pace.
Rating: 7/8 (Fantastic)

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – 09

by psgels, posted in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

Just… what the hell, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Here I was thinking that this would quietly start off the next arc and another over the top clash between Jojo and Dio, and here they come and pull this episode. In just 20 minutes they go over 9000 again with this bizarre talking head of Dio, only to kill off the two most important characters in the series. What other shounen series does that?

This show really lives up to its name. What I especially like here is how helpless Jojo was: he was instantly disabled, hardly being able to use his ripple, and most of this episode was Dio monologueing about something, or zombies being evil. What a contrast with the previous episodes. Dio by the way was hilarious as talking head. The way in which he also used his veins as a weapon… how did they come up with that idea?

And then there is that zombie that on its own made that ship blow up, Elina who survived in the bomb-proof coffin that Dio brought on board both carrying a random child and being pregnant, there was just so much awesome stuff going on in this episode. I can only imagine how many chapters this part took, which makes it even more amazing that the creators managed to condense it to just 20 minutes. I really wonder what would have happened if David Production were handed the rights to remake Bleach ten years from now… it probably would not be as awesome as this series, but most definitely much more bearable than the normal Bleach series.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Robotics;Notes – 08

by psgels, posted in Robotics;Notes

Okay, so this show likes its anti-climaxes. In this episode we saw two examples of the creators toying with this: first of all, the lady of last week’s cliff-hanger is not a threat at all, and instead wants to help the lead characters build their robot, not to mention that she’s working for Akiho’s father. Then the end of this episode comes, and casually mentions that there is an evil organization about to kill 6/7th of the world population.

Instead there was this big typhoon acting as the red herring in this episode: totally unrelated to the plot, but it kept the characters busy, and Akiho now knows about Airi (which I believe should have happened earlier by the way), and I admit that the way in which they used Kaito’s time issues during the typhoon. It looked much more painful than the other times so far, good job from the creators.

It’s also quite a strange way for a guy to hide his reports, using some of the strangest requirements that could break down making some of the clues potentially unsolvable. I really wonder why. I mean, I get that he was a playful guy and all, but would even such a person want to joke about something so serious? Was there a reason why he had to keep things so secret to keep them from finding out?
Rating: 4.5/8 (Good)